It is common practice for supermarkets and similar retail outlets to provide shopping bags formed from plastic film to shoppers for carrying away goods they have purchased. Such shopping bags are often retained by the shopper for subsequent use in the home or in the garden. A common problem encountered is how to conveniently store such plastic film shopping bags between the time they are emptied of their original contents and the time that they are required for some subsequent purpose. The relatively flimsy nature makes then difficult to conveniently pack into drawers. The problem has been addressed to some degree by the use of tubular bags having one open end through which the plastic bags can be deposited into the tubular bag and an elasticized cuff at the other end, for withdrawing bags one at a time.
These tubular bags however only partially solve the problem associated with plastic bags to be stored for re-use as plastic bags come in a variety of sizes. For instance small bags typically used to separate individual products are generally not reusable for the same purposes as are the larger carry bags, although they are typically reusable for other purposes, and thus the two types of bags are not conveniently stored together.
The present invention sets out to better solve the problems associated with storing the plastic bags for reuse.